4 June

Living a life in reverse, moving further away from Levis and the resident Norwegian Blue – who I’ve promised to stay in touch with.

So it’s au revoir to my penthouse suite for now, the one with the winning view over to the walled city.

Reassuring that the road on my reverse trip towards Montreal is now visible this morning, and less busy than my outbound journey.

Mid-morning and up springs Berthierville, a fast-food alley by a tedious highway that spawned a fast-as-fuck driver of skidoos, snowmobiles and formulaic automobiles.

Which is all as unlikely as me being here; no more, no less. Probability when rounded to the nearest millionth is the same.

The museum to Gilles Villeneuve is in an appropriately wintry aircraft hangar, a large red warehouse filled with fast cars and random racing paraphernalia, and the obligatory skidoo.

I’m drawn to the photo of the Old Man and the young Canadian prodigy kicking back with a beer, relaxed and laughing – probably at how they both independently think that they’ve got the other over a barrel on the mutual contract.

The exit through the gift shop is slightly weird … in amongst the model cars and the signed photos, I can rent a trailer or hire a full-sized truck, if my desires overtake me in such a way.

Early afternoon, in a bid to emulate the Canadian Aviator, I plant my foot to the floor of my rental SUV at the traffic lights – aiming for a tyre-smoking wild exit from town, but merely gaining gradual speed from my automatic sludgebox just ever so slightly faster than those around me.

Salut Gilles.

Hours later, and not for the first time, I find myself lost in the Mont Tremblant area … unsure of who I am and where I’m going.

Eventually, I meet up with myself down the well-trodden path, at a modern box in the forest clearing, a place where I can wheel my luggage in, up the concrete ramp.

I’m so Bear Grylls, it kills me.

Through a narrow opening in the surrounding dense woodland, with raucous birds overhead unseen (the original masked singers), falling down a non-existent trail to the lake, where a cold beer has been waiting for me, for a long time.

I make my own delays.